ot of freetime during his post-surgery recovery time. While he slept, my wife and I decided to take a drive around town and we ended up at the University of Washington. Bored, we opened up the laptop and looked up points of interest. I remembered that Bill Gates lives around the floating bridge. A quick Google map search showed his address and a short route. We were on our way across the floating bridge but couldn't see an obvious monolith of a house. We decided to see just how close we could get.
over and stopped for fear of a Microsoft Defense System with *"lasers". I don't remember, but my wife recalled that when the gate was open, there was a security guard outside of a booth and just past Bill's gate.
As we pulled away, I had a delusional thought of how cool it would be to meet Bill Gates and ask him if he could fix our SharePoint problems... afterall, he should have been home since a guest just drove away.
a license, sponsored by Microsoft, to kill. I thought I should leave, especially since there was a sign that said something to the effect of "Members Only", "NO TRESPASSING", "PRIVATE PROPERTY" (I can't remember). Maybe that was the point that security is allowed to start shooting... Yes, I do get very paranoid sometimes. So I quickly turned on my heels, headed back to the hospital and listened to my wife call everyone to tell them how much of a nerd I am :)
I had a chance to work from home one Friday and and after a few hours, started struggling with a headache. It was probably from my mother in law yelling at my wife. Actually, she was talking normally, but her poor eye sight caused by diabetes usually makes her talk loud enough for her to know she's being heard by the person she can't see 5 feet away from her. I sympathize deeply for her, but I needed to get some work done!About $150 later, I put one of the cases together and started drawing up lines on the tile to see where everything would go and it looked like one of the bookcases would overlap the outer doorframe by a couple of inches while the other would barely cover the other side.
I put the other case together and everything seemed to match the plans, so I started to add the casters to the bottom of the sliding bookcase.Perfect! The casters bolted to the bottom raised the bookcase about 1/16". The bookcases standing next to each other were flush to the eye.
I added 3 L' brackets to both sides of the book case as most of the bookcase's weight will be on the bottom shelf, which is being supported by two screws... not good.
The next step was making one door imovable and the other easy to slide. The biggest concern was keeping the line that the casters would travel perfectly straight. The second concern was the alignment at the top and keeping ti from scraping the wall. This is where the closet track was needed.
Atop the moveable case, I secured a 1x4 board and bolted down the guides (the wheel-thingy that goes into the closet track). This kept the bookcase from falling forward and from touching the wall when moved. It had to be set so that the support stays solid from open to close, so the guides were placed in the middle and the far right of the bookcase's top. This way the guides would stay in the track at all times.Test run 1...
Everything was ready, but it didn't go smoothly - literally. The casters would drop into the grout of the tile and this would cause one side of the bookcase to drop 1/32". This may not sound like much, but it made a wave of sounds from the guides vibrating the track, which vibrated the wall. It also didn't help that the bookcase is cheap and has a cardboard backing which also made a rumbling sound since it was not completely snug, even though it was nailed down. Another noticable problem was the bottom of the bookcase scraping the wall... arghh!
2nd trip to Home Depot...
To fix the caster-speed bump problem, I grabbed a tube of clear silicone. I looked everywhere for something that could act as a caster to keep the bottom of the bookcase from scraping, but the closest thing I could find was a closet guide wheel - similar to the one used on top of the case.
Test run 2...
Much better! The casters rolled over the silicone filled grout, which I kept only to the grooves where the wheels rolled. Additionally, I filled the grout between a couple of slivers of plastic wrap to keep the mess to a minimum. No more vibrations from the walls, but there was still some noise form the cardboard backing. I filled the edges of the backing with the rest of the silicone. Now the bottom of the bookcase was in need of attention.
The bottom of the bookcase runs well now, but at the cost of an unsightly strip of metal on the outside that was used to keep the bottom closet guide wheel from digging into the outside drywall. Nothing some wall-matching paint and a plant can't hide :)
haven't worked on a lock that is controlled from the inside and accessible from the outside. I need control from the inside for fear 0f the wife locking me in... I can read her mind. On the outside, I draped the edges with plants and vines. The foliage covers the outside rails and tracks well, but it can still be improved upon.
